The Protest Singer: An intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger (Alec Wilkinson)

The Romantic in me was drawn into this book from the first page as Alec Wilkinson described Pete Seeger hopping on a bicycle and taking off near the end of his second year of university, trading watercolour paintings for meals and playing music with those he met along the way. 

I heard my first Pete Seeger song in elementary school, but it was years before I realized that what I'd heard had been a Pete Seeger song. Last fall, I followed the rabbit hole on YouTube from Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings songs to Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger. I'd been meaning to read up Seeger for a while, so when I stumbled across this book, I picked it up. 

Not far into the book, Wilkinson says it's something that's meant to be read in one sitting. I did that. (Although I did get up from my chair once or twice for more tea). A mere 152 pages long, I managed to get through it in about an hour and a half.  I know that Pete Seeger died in January, so I can only speculate from the snapshots of his life this book provided that Seeger must have been a beautiful person. 

His philosophy on music interests me. I have long felt a disconnect between music and real life. A dilemma exists. If we simply sing, or listen to songs about issues, how are we helping anyone, or changing anything? Pete Seeger had an answer for this dilemma. He believed that "songs can make someone feel powerful when he isn't by any measure except his own determination." Seeger would play for anyone who would listen and saw music as a collective experience and process, rather than as an individual act.  Music empowers when it is experienced collectively. 

The Protest Singer has left me with much food for thought. I shall probably mull over the content for weeks to come, as I read and experience more.